Categories

Meta

Category: Faculty

The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS)-Michigan announced the winners of the 39th Annual Emmy® Awards over the weekend. Angela Peavey, an Advertising and Public Relations adjunct instructor who teaches sections of CAP 105: Technology in Advertising and Public Relations, took home the Emmy for “Best Commercial.”

Peavey is also a 2013 graduate of the MS in Communicationsprogram in the GVSU School of Communications.

“Winning an Emmy® has been something I’ve dreamed about since I was a child,” said Peavey. “Now it came to fruition with a promo video I made for the Saugatuck Center for the Arts (SCA).”

The commercial was created to promote the theatrical programming the Art Center does year-round; including Equity theatre, sizzling concert series, educational programming, and more.

Five nominations created stiff competition for the “Best Commercial” slot and were the most nominations in a single category all night.

“I’m incredibly humbled to win against such amazing talent,” said Peavey. “Of course I ‘stalked’ the other nominations online before the awards to gain a sense of the competition and I’m still in awe that I won.”

The commercial was the brainchild of Peavey, but she thanks the Saugatuck Center for the Arts staff and Board of Directors for all their support. Other participating stakeholders in creating the award-winning piece are Kristin Armstrong, Kurt Stamm, and Jeff Zita of Z-Drones.

“This is an amazing way to kick start the Saugatuck Center for the Arts 15th Anniversary,” said Kristin Armstrong, SCA’s Executive Director. “​What I really love: last year Angela​ made a promise to our board member ​Dan Fox that she would create a video that would become Emmy nominated. Well, she can check that one off her list! And so can the SCA.”

GVSU Advertising and Public Relations alumna, Katelyn Davis, has recently been appointed as the newest board member of the Automotive Public Relations Council (ARPC).

Davis cites that:

“The APRCis a network of public relations professionals dedicated to the advancement of the automotive industry. It serves as a networking and information resource with the unique focus of finding best practices for promoting the industry and building relationships with the media and OEM customers.”

Katelyn Davis

Davis currently works as the Corporate Affairs and Communications Specialist at Yazaki North America. Here, she oversees all of the internal and external communications including corporate marketing, branding, public relations, social media, and employee communications. Davis joined the ARPC shortly after her career began and was recommended for a seat in the fall, and voted in shortly after.

While studying advertising and public relations at Grand Valley, Davis always knew that she wanted to work in the technology industry. Specifically, she knew she wanted to do work that would help change the world. However, upon graduating in 2010, she found herself searching for a job during a difficult time for the economy. Over the course of a year, she applied for 200 jobs all across the country, but eventually found herself working as a social media recruiter for an automotive supplier. Shortly after, Davis attended an industry event where a speaker discussed the importance of the automotive industry and how there is no other tech industry with as expansive of a reach than automotive.

“He went on to talk about how automotive is one of the world’s largest and oldest global industries,” Davis said. “There isn’t Google in every country and not every person is carrying around an iPhone or Android, but there are vehicles on every continent taking water and supplies to even the most desolate and remote areas of third world countries. This really opened my eyes. I wanted to work in tech. I wanted to change the world. Well here was my chance (in automotive). From then on I set.”

The thing that Davis loves most about working in the corporate PR world is that she gets to be a jack-of-all-trades, not just a PR person. In corporate it is public relations, communications, advertising, event planning, writing, project managing, and everything else all rolled into one.

She encourages APR students to consider getting experience within the automotive field as it is a great opportunity to get hands on with a global industry.

“At the very least, if you decide automotive isn’t for you, you will have had major experience to draw from,” Davis said. “Being able to understand and be a part of a network that spans the world is invaluable experience that can really be applied anywhere.”

Katelyn Davis has been involved with the ARPC for the past five years and continues to do great work within this industry everyday. Congratulations to our APR alumna on this great achievement!

A panel of local professionals joined Grand Valley State University Advertising and Public Relations students on November 3, 2016 in the University Club of DeVos Center to discuss branding. After the panel discussion, students and professionals broke into teams to network and participate in a hands-on branding activity.

The panelists for the evening included Jenna Morton from 616 Development, Rob McCarty from The Image Shoppe, JD Osman from Amway, Julie Sheeran from 834 Design, and Raul Alverez from Getting The Stuff Done Group.

Each panelists brought unique experiences and contributions to the discussion. The first question provoked different answers from each of the panelists by asking them to define what a brand is and what it means to them. Sheeran discussed the difference between visual identity and brand, while encouraging the audience to think about what makes their brand different. She asked the audience, “What do you want people to feel and experience when they pick up your product?”

To answer the same question, Osman walked around and asked students in the audience what their favorite brand was and why. He questioned if it was the product or the values that made this brand their favorite. Alverez and McCarty shared their experiences of working with creatives, as neither Alverez or McCarty do the creative work, but participate in the many more things that go into a brand.

Professor Frank Blossom, who coordinated this event, continued the discussion by asking if brand something different than branding. The panelists agreed that brand is the perception and the promise, where as branding are the activities and the tactics done that create the feeling, logo, color scheme and news releases.

After the panel discussion, time was spent doing a brand development activity for SteadyFare, a local rideshare program that competes with Uber and Lyft. Groups were created and students were given a creative brief, tasked with creating a brand description, position statement, new tagline and communication tactics.

After the activity, each team was given the opportunity to present their ideas and discuss with the large audience. The professionals in attendance seemed to be pleased and impressed with the results, commenting that in the professional world, this work normally takes months, rather than in the minutes that the students accomplished it in.

Grand Valley’s Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) wanted to do something a little different this year. We have a weekly blog that goes out written by members that discusses different topics, but what else can we do to differentiate ourselves from other chapters who also have blogs? What is something other chapters haven’t done yet?

A podcast.

This podcast is available on mixcloud.com, iTunes and soundcloud.com. It originally started as a biweekly podcast, but the content started becoming too timely to wait, so we are now a weekly podcast. Episodes air Wednesdays at 2pm. As mentioned, we try to stay up to date on events and be as relevant as possible. Part of that included covering the recent PRSSA National Conference that took place October 21-25. A lot happened here, many
speakers gave advice and words of wisdom to soon-to-be PR pros in a positive way. But then something rather negative surfaced and we agreed it was an opportunity to use the podcast as our voice on an issue we felt as aspiring professionals needed to be addressed.

One PR pro made a sexist tweet about a woman speaker using the National Conference hash tag. This started to spread like wildfire.

One main influencer in the recognition of this was Heather Whaling (@Prtini) as she called out this tweet. She also wrote a blog about this experience, laying out a way to actually combat this from happening besides just tweeting about disappointment.

I reached out to Whaling and asked if she could come on the podcast and discuss what happened. She’s in Ohio, however, so we had to do a Skype call and record it to put it online. She agreed immediately and that podcast went out Friday, October 29, 2016. It can be found here .

The goal of our podcast is to get a mixture of student and professional opinions about varying topics, as well as a recap of our meetings and interviews with the professionals who speak to us. PRSSA meetings are an experience. We as students get to meet some amazing influencers and PR pros and the best way to capture them is by getting firsthand accounts from speakers themselves or students who experienced the meeting and record the conversations. Podcasting is something I love doing, more so being able to host the podcast and interview and meet some amazing people.

My name is Kelly Darcy and I am the host and producer of GV PRSSA’s podcast, PR Hangover. I am an Advertising and Public Relations student minoring in Women, Gender, and Sexualities Studies. I started dabbling in broadcasting as a hobby when I joined GV’s WCKS The Whale two years ago. I had a radio show that I recorded and put up as a podcast. As any other student, I am not exactly sure what I want to actually do with my future, but I am determined to have as many skills in my toolkit as possible.

If there are any questions for me about podcasting, feel free to email me at darcyke@mail.gvsu.edu or tweet me @kaydarcc.

Each year, the Grand Rapids Business Journal recognizes the best of the best in the annual 40 Under 40 event. Throughout the night, these top young business leaders are honored for all of their hard work, success and accomplishments.

Last night, I was fortunate enough to attend this prestigious event and sit amongst some of Grand Rapid’s most successful leaders. The night was filled with great entertainment from music and a comedy show to a video reel of all of the honorees. While it was truly inspiring to hear from all of the honorees, there were two specially that stood out and left a lasting impressing on me.

The 2016 40 under 40 event recognized two of our very own GVSU Advertising and Public relations alumni: Rick Jensen and Adam Russo.

Rick Jensen

Rick Jensen has an extensive background in communications and public relations including working at Davenport University, SeyferthPR and Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park. Since then he has won multiple Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Proof Awards, was named President of West Michigan’s PRSA Board of Directors in 2015, and continues to have a successful career as the Senior Media Relations Specialist at Spectrum Health.

“I am honored and humbled to be included among such a wonderful group of well-known professionals and community leaders,” said Jensen. “As a PR professional, it means even more for the profession that our work is being recognized by business leaders and validated by such a prestigious list and publication.”

Jensen said that GVSU helped set him up for success in career through the great things he learned from the amazing professors in the School of Communications.

For aspiring PR professionals, his biggest piece of advice is to land an internship early on and get involved within your major.

“My first internship was highly influential in landing my first job out of college, and the relationships I made at that time are the building blocks on which my career is built upon today,” said Jensen.

Adam Russo

Adam Russo is deeply rooted in the West Michigan communications community where he has had an extremely successful career thus far working previously at Haworth and SeyferthPR. After gaining experience working with global brands like Amway and Haworth, regional companies like Comcast and Varnum and several different nonprofits, Russo began his own public relations firm, COM 616. He will also serve as the next president for the West Michigan PRSA chapter.

“I’m truly honored to be recognized with the 40 Under Forty award,” said Russo. “When I looked at the full list of honorees, I was humbled by the level of everyone’s talent, experience and leadership. “

Russo said that GVSU provided him with the foundation that he was able to build his career on. He also advised students to recognize their network as one of their most valuable resources.

“Start building your network while you’re in college,” said Russo. “Get out and meet as many people as you can. Volunteering is a great way to gain experience and meet new people.”

As an aspiring PR professional, I take every bit of advice from the real pros that I can get. We’ve been told countless times that entering this field will not always be easy and things will never be handed to us. And sometimes, the future can seem kind of scary. However, at Grand Valley we are fortunate enough to be provided with countless opportunities for professional and personal growth. We are given the tools necessary to help us survive in the “real world” and be successful within our chosen field of advertising and public relations. Jensen and Russo are proof that with hard work come great rewards. Their professional success is a testament to the idea if you work hard enough, make great connections and relationships, and get involved within your field- you really can accomplish great things.

While attending the 40 under 40 event, it was clear to see the passion that each honoree had for their career as well as the city of Grand Rapids. Congratulations to both Rick Jensen and Adam Russo on representing our great city and our great school!

The University Room at the Devos Center downtown makes you feel as though you have stepped back in time for just a moment. For the majority of students, like myself, it almost looks like a place that you shouldn’t enter because you just don’t belong there. But, on Wednesday October 5th APR students and faculty, with a few other interesting individuals, gathered together ready to discuss politics with local broadcaster Rick Albin. As I prepared to listen to the presentation, there was one question on my mind: what is Rick Albin going to teach us?

Albin is the main political reporter for WOODTV8. He has interviewed every president since Gerald. R. Ford. He has worked in radio and on television in five states, discussing a variety of topics including political debates. His experience ranges from local governments to national politics. Albin is also the host of the show “To the Point” that airs Sundays at 10 a.m. on WOODTV8

The presentation was focused on the idea of messaging in politics, a complicated topic. Albin discussed how the messages found in both campaigns have remained consistent through the duration of the election season. He pointed out specific insights from both Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton’s campaigns. Most importantly, he explained how both of the candidates use rhetoric that is similar to rhetoric used in previous presidential campaigns.

Ablin shared that the problems discussed in the debates are comparable to the issues discussed in previous elections he covered. So, the majority of the issues discussed are nothing new, despite current beliefs that this election is unlike any other. At the end of the day, the main points are safety, security, and economic stability.

“The issues are the same as in every election I covered; they’re just doing it with more food fights,” said Albin.

“Food fights” is an interesting, yet truthful way to describe the behavior between the candidates during previous debates. From twitter wars to full on trash talking on live television: these candidates make civil conversation look impossible. But, Albin firmly believes that this is not the worst presidential election in our nation’s history. Despite the many individuals who are worried for the future of our country, he believes that our country has made it out of worse conditions than this.

The final point of the presentation dealt was about social media. It’s very obvious that social media has played a huge role in the current presidential campaign. Both candidates are avid users of Twitter, and have often communicated with supporters through social media. There is a unique level of connectivity that has not been allowed in previous elections because of social media. But, Albin noted that despite all its benefits, social media can also make individuals bias.

“Social media has changed campaigns because people can self select sources, of information and keep out contrary views,” said Albin.

With the number of news sources at our fingertips, it is impossible not to be overwhelmed and slightly biased when choosing our news. Social media allows people to look up sources based on their already formed political opinions. They choose sources that match these opinions, and spend the time scrolling through the same articles from these sources. When individuals scroll through their timeline they may come across contrary opinions posted by members in their friends list. When this happens, arguments may begin causing unnecessary drama on different social media platforms. But, facts are facts and social media is becoming a main outlet for news, biased or not.

Rick Albin was a perfect way to start off this year’s APR Speaker Series. Overall, the presentation was very informative and entertaining. He gave students a unique understanding of the key messages in the campaigns, and helped them understand that the state of our country is not as bad as we think (which is something that the majority of Americans need to hear at the moment). It will be interesting to see what happens after this year’s election.

Corinne is a senior at GVSU majoring in Advertising/Public Relations with a minor in French. When she is not in PRSSA/GrandPR meetings, she enjoys volunteering with her sorority sisters in Delta Zeta.

Today the grand slam in advertising, PR, and digital com (let’s just call it all strategic communications – communication with a purpose) is content that spreads, goes viral and generates a lot of earned, free media.

So how does it happen? Can you create content that spreads

Let’s start with the core question, “Why do we share, post, tweet, retweet, pin, vlog, Instagram and every other manner of digitally sharing with friends, colleagues and peers?”

Social currency.

It’s not what the content says as much as it’s what the content says about us.

It says we’re in the know. Smart. Have the inside track. Ahead of the curve. Cool, Hip, Funny, Fashionable. We knew what color the dress was. Our sharable content shapes how others see us.

Malcolm Gladwell ignited the concept in The Tipping Point – that singular, simple moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFbkVL1X9M8

When you look at all three books you see a pattern, a few common characteristics which can help transform your communication – boost your idea’s chance of virality and put it on the fast track. Content worth sharing because it gives you, the sender, resender or writer social currency.

In other words, “How cool am I because I sent you this?”

Let’s take a look at how you can craft your content.

Is the content simple and concrete? Can the idea be expressed in a single sentence? Is it visually memorable? Can it be explained in human actions so that are easily understood and can be shared with consistent meaning?

“You’re not you when you’re hungry. Snickers satisfies.”

Is the content a story? Stories stick. We have an innate need for narrative. We share stories, not pie charts.

Is the content remarkable and unexpected? Let’s combine story and unexpected. Did you hear the story about the blender that turned an iPad into dust? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAl28d6tbko Is the story message relevant to the product, candidate or cause? Is Blend Tec a powerful blender?

Post by: Frank Blossom, affiliate professor

Professor Blossom teaches advertising, PR, creativity and story making classes at GVSU. He developed his brand building skills as a copywriter and Creative Director at Leo Burnett, DArcy, Noble & Associates and Felder Communications Group. In 2001 he founded The Polishing Center and serves as Head Coach helping young creatives build their portfolios and interviewing skills. Additionally, Frank manages Frank Communications and serves as head referee for the Creative Smackdown – a creative competition showcase bringing together students from all over Michigan with advertising and design professionals. For the past 20 years, The American Advertising Federation, the National Student Advertising Competition, and other ad associations have tapped Franks experience to judge local, regional, national and international advertising competitions. Frank serves on the Board of Directors of the Womens Resource Center and facilitates visual and verbal communications for VSA. In 2010 Frank was awarded The Silver Medalthe American Advertising Federations highest honor to professionals who have made outstanding contributions to the advertising and marketing industry and who have been active in furthering creative excellence and responsibility in areas of social concern.